Friday, January 8, 2016

A Case Study Into the Madness of Crowds & Their Popular Delusions

Jeremy Travis - This article is from nineteen-hundred and ninety-two. It's that long ago that I have to refer to it like a date in the distant pass. The relevancy is completely lost now, some two decades and three years, a Black-owned network, and Black president later.

Muhammad Rasheed - Jeremy, the time period claimed for the rape allegations were also in the "distant past." Except for three of them, all the rest of the allegations were first reported in the 2000s under Troiani's group law suit package hoping to score $100 million from the comedian. Of the three, one was made during the height of Cosby's popularity in the '80s, while the other two were made in the '90s. To me, the theory that he is being attacked by rivals to ruin him is a lot stronger than the rape allegations themselves, which fail to hold up to any amount of scrutiny.

I posted this because I came across a definitive statement from someone who proclaimed that Cosby never tried to purchase NBC. I considered the comment a bluff.

Lana Andrade - He's still a fucking rapist.

Muhammad Rasheed - How do you know?

Lana Andrade - because HE said so.

Muhammad Rasheed - Copy/paste the quote[s] where he said he raped someone, please.

Muhammad Rasheed - Show me the quote where he admitted he raped people, please. Do so and I will join your lynch mob.

Jeremy Travis - 'Jeremy, the time period claimed for the rape allegations were also in the "distant past".'

There is a significant difference between the passage of time from incidents of sexual abuse 3-4 decades ago and an interest in purchasing a television network 2 decades ago.

Now granted, your point that he entertained the purchase of NBC is true and valid, but acting like this recent rise in the prominence of the allegations against him is to prevent that age-old purchase is ridiculous.

Tracy Lawrence - Wait, so him saying under oath that he gave woman drugs for the purposes of having sex with them AND 55 woman saying they were drugged and rape is coincidence?

Jeremy Travis - Tracy, I THINK what Muhammad is saying is that Cosby offered the women the quaaludes and they willfully accepted them only to turn tail decades later and say that they were given the quaaludes without their knowledge.

Tracy Lawrence - As a woman, that makes zero sense to me.

Jeremy Travis - As a rational human, it makes zero sense to me, too.

Tracy Lawrence - The way the current culture is, I would more readily believe that women would brag about taking drugs and bedding Cosby IF they did it willfully.Jeremy Travis - Exactly! Do you know the tell-all interviews they each could book had it been consentual? "I banged 'America's Dad'!" "Bill Cosby is a pill-popping freak!" "Bill, I'll tell ALL of your secrets unless you pay me a substantial amount of money."

Muhammad Rasheed - ^That is 100% what Dickerson did. Her "tell all" book bragged about her encounter with Cosby back in the day and now, with the promise of a share in the $100 million payout offered by the Hollywood Attorney, suddenly the story changed.

Jeremy Travis - Even that doesn't discount the rest of the women.

Muhammad Rasheed - It isn't about "the women" versus Cosby, it's about Troiani vs Cosby. She's dangling a piece of that potential $100 million in those women's faces because she needs their cooperation in order to win her 33% off the top of a settlement.

Jeremy Travis - So you doubt what the women are saying because of Troiani? You don't believe ANY of the allegations?

Muhammad Rasheed - I don't believe Bill Cosby gave any of them drugs without their knowledge and raped them. I do believe it is highly likely that he did grope people inappropriately in party settings, and similar, over-friendly behavior with women he found attractive, and these incidents are being blown up out of proportion to add fuel to Troiani's bs 'rape' case.

Lana Andrade - I'm not having this conversation with another black man. I refuse. This just furthers my suspicion that I cannot as a woman trust myself with one.

Muhammad Rasheed - The significance of the "50 women" is that Troiani needs a lot of statements to score her $100 million; bodies to sway public opinion drawing from the very real evils of our "rape culture."

Muhammad Rasheed - I absolutely want the rape culture destroyed, I just do not agree with sacrificing an innocent to do it.

Muhammad Rasheed - "Just believe it!" isn't good enough.

Jeremy Travis - So then all of the women are lying?

Muhammad Rasheed - What are you using to prove that they aren't lying? $100 million is a lot of money. Lying to achieve large amounts of money has a long and distinguished tradition.

Aren't you all the ones who also argue against the evils of ‘capitalism?’

Jeremy Travis - So when they said that he drugged them before having sex with them, and he admits to drugging women in order to have sex with them, your source of doubt is where, now?

Jeremy Travis - Giving chicks quaaludes, which will knock them ALL of the way out, then having sex with them while they're out, is rape.Abdur Rasheed - Maybe his dick looks like a half melted candy yam and the chicks insisted on an anesthetic?"You want to get into show business right? Daaaaaaaaahh!!!"

Offering them. It was normal during the swingers era to offer them instead of, or along with, alcohol and other rec drugs. It was part of the sub-culture the era is famous for.

Jeremy Travis wrote: "...which will knock them ALL of the way out..."

That's at least the second time you've said that about the drug, which differs quite a bit from its actual function and usage... which is actually a lot closer to how youth in more modern era used ecstacy.

Muhammad Rasheed - I'm sure it's still the "style" in many circles now a days, but that doesn't mean that Cosby engaged in it. People deliberately drink alcohol to "loosen up' in adult social situations. This is why the drugs were both offered and accepted. No one in this scandal was raped.

Daniel Leon Ackerman - have to see if court agrees with you.

Jeremy Travis - "Methaqualone, sold under the brand name Quaalude (\ˈkwā-ˌlüd\),[a] in the US and Mandrax in the UK, is a sedative and hypnotic medication. It is a member of the quinazolinone class..

The sedative–hypnotic activity of methaqualone was first noted by researchers in the 1950s. In 1962, methaqualone was patented in the US by Wallace and Tiernan.[2] Its use peaked in the early 1970s as a hypnotic, for the treatment of insomnia, and as a sedative and muscle relaxant."

A 'sedative', 'hypnotic', and 'muscle relaxant' doesn't sound like a rape drug to you?

Muhammad Rasheed -

Jeremy Travis - OK, and... ?

Muhammad Rasheed - You're making a big deal about the effects it has, meanwhile alcohol is also a sedative/muscle relaxant. Both drugs, and others, were offered to people during that swinger’s era and it was a normal part of the culture to do so. You took them or you didn't. Were there people who weaponized them and preyed upon women? Of course, just like there are folk who get women drunk today to prey on them. Cosby wasn't one of these latter.

Jeremy Travis - How do you know that he wasn't one of the latter?

Muhammad Rasheed - The evidence isn't leaning in that direction. The evidence is bottle-necking right at Troiani's feet.

Muhammad Rasheed - @Daniel... Well, actually I fully expect the anti-Cosby "Just Believe It!" cult to win. It's an ideology. People aren't interested in what actually happened, they just want to sacrifice Cosby at the alter of this thing.Daniel Leon Ackerman - i agree that public opinion has already found him guilty. courts are different.

Not really. If we could count on humans being able to set aside their biases and subjectivity, and strictly rule only on the facts, then we wouldn't have many of our problems.

Daniel Leon Ackerman - yep. courts are different than public opinion. they are official.

Muhammad Rasheed - People still use their subjective opinion and biases to make official decisions, as the casual search revealed.

Daniel Leon Ackerman - in this country we have difficulty convicting celebrities. my early prediction is Coz will be let off in criminal court and taken to the cleaners in civil court.

Abdur Rasheed - I'm not making a judgement either way until I have all the facts.

I DO think that it's important to keep it in perspective.

$100 million or $500 million doesn't matter if he's guilty.

If a multimillionaire raped you I would think that YOU would want to take a few days off without going in to your job at Walmart.

There are a LOT of opportunist out there and money is a pretty good motivator combined with a law firm who can make it a class action law suit and collect 33% of the total off the top before expenses.

Out of the 55 women who made these allegations if one of them is telling the truth because Dr Cosby had a moment of weakness and had sex without her consent -- as if he out of curiosity double clicked on a over the top freakshow porn site and liked it -- and then fell back on his position of "I'm Bill Cosby and she's nobody" then I really mean this part...FUCK HIM WITH A FROZEN PUDDING POP!

Being in a habit of paying women off when your rich, famous, and MARRIED isn't necessarily proof of anything.

Abdur Rasheed - I think that we should spend ZERO time worrying about our celebrity conviction rate and ALL of our energy on our conviction rate of the truly GUILTY.

If YOU were a celebrity and you never broke a law in your life and somebody tried to extort you for money and kept a sample of your swimmers and had her lawyer call you and say that you raped her and she needs $200,000 or she's selling her story to the press somewhere some uninformed knucklehead is going to say, "Pfffffftttt celebrities are above the law."

The ONLY difference the the "celebrity" part that scenario is the $200,000 part and the some knucklehead heard about it part and expressed an uninformed opinion part.

That's why we don't have a Conviction System! We have and SHOULD have a Justice System.

Daniel Leon Ackerman - so many caps. are you getting worked up over this?

Abdur Rasheed - Does the emphasis of three of my words negate my point somehow?

The question should be: What is it about you that wants to see potentially innocent people locked up and disgraced just because they are well known?

I think that is a key question because it's representative of a lot of Americans and it's why we are so short sighted and progress is so slow.

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About Me

"I see the world as a multi-layered, encrypted message—encrypted for countless reasons, by numerous sources. I believe our job as actively-engaged humans is to decode these messages for our own use and to document them for the greater body of human literature at the means each individual has at hand. As an artist—specifically, a cartoonist—that is the means/medium I use for my own decoding duties. Through my research, I use logic, reason and intellect to intuitively follow the knowledge thread that intrigues me, connecting the dots from pattern recognition, and producing the cartoons that form my socio-political analysis."